[Crawl] Sometimes this game feels magic!

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Remember my last post about 5 white stairs on level 1? Nothing magic
about, but my next game started with 1 stair only (not really, the other
branches where just unconnected). Anyway, it felt a little bit like an
analogy, as in 5+1=6 makes an average of 3 for both games at level 1.
;-)
But that's not what I consider 'magic', yet...
My current) game started with an insane monster population, one of those
games usually end up hopelessly and quick. But not so this one (air
elementalists actually are not so weak in the early game)! At that point
I didn't thought about magic, just insane luck...

Then I found a staff of air - on level 2!
I'm currently playing nothing else then air elementalists (got really
adicted), but never got this staff. What can a AE better wish for in the
early game? This staff almost feels like cheating, not just because it
powers up my air spells, it also provides resistance to electricity
which I consider even more important!

The next 'wonder' happened on level 3 then, where I found a staff of
conjuration! While currently not as usefull as the staff of air, it
reminds me to my (still parked) advanced GEWz, who had found more than
20 magical staves but not one single staff of conjuration (though
painfully needed).

It seems I'm not the only one who thinks there's something special about
this game: I can feel the RNG lurking around, regretting the favours he
already gave to me. For now, I take it as a first test, he tried to kick
me out on level 5 with 4 giant eyeballs in a row, to no avail.
Ok, 4 giant eyeballs in a row surely aren't special, but on level 5?
Very suspicious...

While talking about opinions, feelings and magic...
I recognized some strange thing I can't imagine it's coded, otherwise
happened too often now to be ignored: the last monster from which I
gain the level-up seems to have significantly increased defense. Not
always, but remarkably often.
Does this only happen to me or am I just spinning?

Rubinstein

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 6:32:34 AM bork 2/10/2005 bork bork:

[air elementalists]

Ruby, pray for me. Well, don't bother, it's too late. I've gone over to the
dark side. I finally want to get one win of this game under my belt, no
matter how horribly cheap the win is (short of save-scumming, Mummies, and
Nemelex, of course), so I've started playing...

....Centair Air Elementalists.

Once you get past the painful first couple of levels (where actually killing
anything without resorting to melee (which would reduce my abuse of the early
bonus to training Spellcasting (which would sabotage my goal of playing as
abusively as possible)))...

....it's disgusting. Can you imagine what Spriggans would be like if they were
somewhat worse at magic, but were big bags of HP's? Well, that's what a
Centaur with Swiftness is like.

And I haven't even started with training my *bow* yet.

I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE ON ANTAEUS AND ALL THE REST OF YOU!!!

S

p

o

i

l

e

r



S

p

a

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e


> While talking about opinions, feelings and magic...
> I recognized some strange thing I can't imagine it's coded, otherwise
> happened too often now to be ignored: the last monster from which I
> gain the level-up seems to have significantly increased defense. Not
> always, but remarkably often.
> Does this only happen to me or am I just spinning?

Yes and no. 🙂 Perhaps closer to the truth would be "monsters with
significantly increased defense seem to be the last monster from which I gain
a level-up"? Any monster that can use weapons or armor (like those damn
plate-armored Orc Warriors) gets a (flat) 30% increase to its XP value.
That's one thing, but it doesn't account for much, since e.g. EVERY hobgoblin
gets this. Let's take a look at the Hobgoblin That Will Not Die (and levels
you when it does). Monster hit points get set like this:

menv[mid].hit_points = hit_points( menv[mid].hit_dice, 6, 5 );

with hit_points looking like this:

int hit_points(int hit_dice, int min_hp, int rand_hp)
{
int hrolled = 0;

for (int hroll = 0; hroll < hit_dice; hroll++)
{
hrolled += random2(1 + rand_hp);
hrolled += min_hp;
}

return (hrolled);
} // end hit_points()

min_hp and rand_hp for hobgoblins look like this (note, however, that at one
point Brent stated that you shouldn't trust this data farther than you can
throw it, though things may have been cleaned up since then -- not sure if he
said that in the b26 era; also note that I may be misinterpreting):

{ 1, 4, 5, 0 },
- hit dice, min hp per HD, extra random hp per HD, fixed HP (unique mons)

So the Ueber-hobgoblin is the one who rolled a 5 (a 4?) for their rand_hp, I
suppose, leading to a hitpoint count for their one hit-die of 1 (from the
function) + 5 (rand_hp) + 4 (min_hp) = 10, as opposed to the minimum of 6.

Now let's see what that does to the experience value of THTWND. The base xp
calculation is:

x_val = (16 + maxhp) * (mHD * mHD) / 10;

....where maxhp is equal to the HP he got "above."

Other than the flat 30% for their MONUSE_WEAPONS_ARMOUR flag, this is, as far
as I can tell, all that affects the XP value of THTWND. So his little
brother, Please Dungeon Master Can I Roll Those Dice Again Hobgoblin, who got
just 1 random HP, is worth:

(16 + 6) * (1*1) / 10 = 22 / 10 = 2.2 = 2, I suppose. If this is made an
integer before multiplication by 1.3, then it's still 2. If not, then 2.2 *
1.3 = 2.86, and he's worth 3, I guess.

While our ueberhobgoblin is worth:

(16 + 10) * (1*1) / 10 = 26 / 10 = 2.6 = ... 3, I suppose. After
multiplication by 1.3, this is either 2.6 * 1.3 = 3.38 = 3, or 3*1.3 = 3.9 =
4.

Still not saying much, although the numbers involved in leveling up are small
at first. Let's take a look at a very mildly OOD monster, the DL 1 Orc Wizard
That Will Not Die. These guys are:
{ 3, 3, 4, 0 }, and have the MONUSE_WEAPONS_ARMOUR flag (of course).

So his unlucky brother gets
(3+1) + (3+1) + (3+1) = 12 and is worth (16+12) * (3*3) / 10 = 28 * 9 / 10 =
25.2, times the 30% modifier,
while TOWTWND has:
(3+4) + (3+4) + (3+4) = 21, and is worth (16+21) * (3*3) / 10 = 39 * 9 / 10 =
35.1, time the 30% modifier. So just like THTWND, he's about 1.5 as
XP-delicious as his unlucky brother, but a 13 point (I suppose) XP difference
is much more likely to affect whether you level up than a 1 XP difference,
and is quite likely to make this one more likely to be the one that makes you
level than his unlucky brother was.

So maybe this is what's giving you the feeling you mentioned.

I think there's an XP modifier for your *own* XP level somewhere, but I
couldn't find it in passing, and have already overdone this already. 🙂

Erik

 

[abc]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

I'm sure there are perfectly good reasons for any kind of RNG "magic"
behaviour, but I still like to think of it as evil programming so cunningly
hidden no-one has yet worked out how it works. Which would pretty much
qualify as magic anyway :]

To wit, exhibit #1, a recent game with a Deep Elf Thief who found a +2
sword, ring of protection from cold, ring of teleportation and +2 gloves on
DL1, and died in a hail of nasties right at the start of DL2. Has to be
magic (This is why I love Crawl)

abc

 

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abc wrote:
> I'm sure there are perfectly good reasons for any kind of RNG "magic"
> behaviour, but I still like to think of it as evil programming so
> cunningly hidden no-one has yet worked out how it works. Which would
> pretty much qualify as magic anyway :]

That's pretty much similar to my (personal) view of magic: magic
actually doesn't exist in reality, it's just a yet unexplored part of
reality, while 'magicans' are people who are not overly interested in
things they already know and therefore even tend to forget what they
know, just to keep things 'magic' (ok, yet another cheap excuse for my
bad memory). Did I say that?

> To wit, exhibit #1, a recent game with a Deep Elf Thief who found a +2
> sword, ring of protection from cold, ring of teleportation and +2
> gloves on DL1, and died in a hail of nasties right at the start of
> DL2. Has to be magic (This is why I love Crawl)

Honestly, sounds like the RNG's daily joke time! ;-)
The other way around (1. starting with the nasties + 2. surviving + 3.
getting unusual rewards soon after) was something new to me, though.
Ok, but then I usually miss part 2 and thus never would know about any
part 3... *g*

Rubinstein

 

[abc]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

"Rubinstein" <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:cuggjd$lqp$04$1@news.t-online.com...
>
> That's pretty much similar to my (personal) view of magic: magic
> actually doesn't exist in reality, it's just a yet unexplored part of
> reality, while 'magicans' are people who are not overly interested in
> things they already know and therefore even tend to forget what they
> know, just to keep things 'magic' (ok, yet another cheap excuse for my
> bad memory). Did I say that?

I think it was Arthur C. Clarke that said it - something along the lines of
"any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

He must have seen the RNG too, I reckon :]

abc

 

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Erik Piper wrote:
> bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 6:32:34 AM bork 2/10/2005 bork bork:
>
> [air elementalists]
>
> Ruby, pray for me. Well, don't bother, it's too late. I've gone over
> to the dark side. I finally want to get one win of this game under my
> belt, no matter how horribly cheap the win is (short of save-scumming,
> Mummies, and Nemelex, of course), so I've started playing...
>
> ...Centair Air Elementalists.

Seems you actually expect a 'cheap' win from that combo, interesting.
I always thought Grey Elves are predestinated for AEs, at least if you
want to play a *real* Air Elementalist. Though I still wonder whether
and how it's possible at all, but that's one of the main reasons I'm
currently playing this combo (besides they are just plain fun, of
course).

> Once you get past the painful first couple of levels...

Don't know about CeAEs, but meanwhile I consider GEAEs one of the
easiest spellcasters in the first few levels, though I still have to
prove their survivability in the mid/late game.

> ...(where actually killing anything without resorting to melee (which
> would reduce my abuse of the early bonus to training Spellcasting
> (which would sabotage my goal of playing as abusively as
> possible)))...

What a wonderful, original 'Erik-Piper-infinite-nested-loop' sentence
again! 🙂

> ...it's disgusting. Can you imagine what Spriggans would be like if
> they were somewhat worse at magic, but were big bags of HP's? Well,
> that's what a Centaur with Swiftness is like.

I slowly start to understand why you prefer this certain combo...
Though I wouldn't call it a *real* Air Elementalist, just someone who
scratch the cream from the AE-cake. ;-)

> And I haven't even started with training my *bow* yet.
>
> I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE ON ANTAEUS AND ALL THE REST OF YOU!!!

Anyway, good luck!

> [skipping spoilers, cause I don't underst... err cause I'm a magican
> (if you know what I mean)]
>
>> While talking about opinions, feelings and magic...
>> I recognized some strange thing I can't imagine it's coded, otherwise
>> happened too often now to be ignored: the last monster from which I
>> gain the level-up seems to have significantly increased defense. Not
>> always, but remarkably often.
>> Does this only happen to me or am I just spinning?
>
> Yes and no. 🙂

I'm surprised, I rather expected (not from you, though) something like
"No and yes" (preferably with no addtitional comments) *g*

> Perhaps closer to the truth would be "monsters with significantly
> increased defense seem to be the last monster from which I gain a
> level-up"? Any monster that can use weapons or armor (like those damn
> plate-armored Orc Warriors) gets a (flat) 30% increase to its XP
> value. That's one thing, but it doesn't account for much, since e.g.
> EVERY hobgoblin gets this. Let's take a look at the Hobgoblin That
> Will Not Die (and levels you when it does). Monster hit points get set
> like this:
>
> [snip spoiler, sorry Erik]
>
> So maybe this is what's giving you the feeling you mentioned.

I don't think so... Imagine a character who usually needs something
around 3 hits to kill a certain common level 2 monster and is currently
2 points ahead of the next level up. Now suddenly our char needs 12 hits
to kill that certain monster!
I think I understand your explanation quite well, but those 'suddenly
harder to kill monsters' also should appear in 'non-close-to-level-up'
situations which I would recognize as well, but that's not the case. I
wouldn't say "never", but *significantly* less.
Of course the psychologists amoung us will rip their hair now (with
something like "the act of leveling as kind of psychological 'marker'"
and of course it won't be easy to disprove that kind of arguments)...

Anyway, thanks a lot for trying to shed some light into this kind of
'magic', though I'm not convinced yet.

Rubinstein

 

[Ru]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

abc wrote:
>
> "Rubinstein" <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message
> news:cuggjd$lqp$04$1@news.t-online.com...
>>
>> That's pretty much similar to my (personal) view of magic: magic
>> actually doesn't exist in reality, it's just a yet unexplored part of
>> reality, while 'magicans' are people who are not overly interested in
>> things they already know and therefore even tend to forget what they
>> know, just to keep things 'magic' (ok, yet another cheap excuse for my
>> bad memory). Did I say that?
>
> I think it was Arthur C. Clarke that said it - something along the lines of
> "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

there's a corrollary too: "any technology distinguishable from magic is
insufficiently advanced"

> He must have seen the RNG too, I reckon :]

it's an amazing faculty of the human mind to impute patterns onto random
noise ;-)

back on the subject of magic, psychology experiments have shown that
people who believe in psychic phenomena are more likely to lack a basic
grasp of probability. make of that what you will


--
ru

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

In article <370ui8F56v7puU1@individual.net>,
Erik Piper <efrniokr@sdky.cz> wrote:
// min_hp and rand_hp for hobgoblins look like this (note, however, that at one
// point Brent stated that you shouldn't trust this data farther than you can
// throw it, though things may have been cleaned up since then -- not sure if he
// said that in the b26 era; also note that I may be misinterpreting):

I was probably referering to the comments, the data is just data.

I wouldn't trust the comment at the top of that file very much at all
(either for fields or usage)... but providing you check the struct to
see that you're looking at the right thing (and check how those fields
really are get getting used) you should be okay.

Comments are notorious for "bit rot" in projects... I regularly kill or
rewrite them when I bother to notice.

Brent Ross

 

[Ru]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> (Actually I haven't played this character much since writing the original
> lines -- I couldn't resist the temptation to send a few dozen more Deep Elf
> Assassins to their doom,

don't i know that feeling! i'll have to check my score files for the number of
dead DEAs, but it's taken a looooong time to get anywhere.

> decided to give my crossbow-lustful Deep Elf
> a somewhat more powerful starting kit, by making him a fire elementalist. To
> make things a bit more interesting, since he's planning in the long term on
> using crossbows for much/most of his damage rather than spells, he took on
> Kickboxmugabe instead of Vehumet, and hopefully will arrive at the Tomb able
> to cast Necromutation and Silence, plink at silenced Greater Mummies with his
> crossbow, and drink potions of healing, stored on the ground nearby
> somewhere, a lot to deal with the rotting.)

i've gone for translocation. blinking with missile weapons means you can pretty
much avoid melee entirely. it even works against packs of yaks - though
that's a bit hairier. i'm carefully keeping translocations my highest
skill, so i can get controlled blink from my next acquirement.

next stop: enchantments.

i happily found a crossbow midway down the lair. just as well, life using just
a hand crossbow was getting exciting. now i've got 300 bolts stashed in the
temple.. but they're damn heavy to carry about, even just 50 at a time.

god: okawaru. couldn't think of a better choice. though i'm thinking it
might be a bit of a waste, given i'll be able to cast haste myself.
still, i suppose i save 6 spell levels, and i've got haste from okawaru
*right now* rather than at some unspecified point in the future.

--
ru

 

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bork bork bork ru bork 3:09:33 PM bork 2/11/2005 bork bork:

> Erik Piper wrote:
> > (Actually I haven't played this character much since writing the original
> > lines -- I couldn't resist the temptation to send a few dozen more Deep
> > Elf Assassins to their doom,
>
> don't i know that feeling! i'll have to check my score files for the number
> of dead DEAs, but it's taken a looooong time to get anywhere.

It depends a LOT on how soon you find your first spellbook, and how useful it
is. And no matter what, you can't expect to walk into, say, the Orcish Mines
almost as soon as you see it and just start blowing the place to smithereens,
like you can with a conjuring deep elf. I finally experienced that lovely
feeling again last night -- even without support from Vehumet, it was whoosh
boom KA-BLANG sizzle all over again. I was expecting to have to wait for the
Elven Halls to pick up a crossbow of any sort, but I picked up a big one in a
store... kind of a waste of bolts to use it, but I'm anxious to get started.
Hard to decide... the Elven Halls and their hand crossbows are just a short
distance away, but they're also very dangerous for a character of my low
level.

I would have preferred to have reached this situation by starting with a hard
crossbow, but I'm happy to have my little guy achieve it at all.

> > decided to give my crossbow-lustful Deep Elf
> > a somewhat more powerful starting kit, by making him a fire elementalist.
> > To make things a bit more interesting, since he's planning in the long
> > term on using crossbows for much/most of his damage rather than spells,
> > he took on Kickboxmugabe instead of Vehumet, and hopefully will arrive at
> > the Tomb able to cast Necromutation and Silence, plink at silenced
> > Greater Mummies with his crossbow, and drink potions of healing, stored
> > on the ground nearby somewhere, a lot to deal with the rotting.)
>
> i've gone for translocation.

This depends on actually finding a book with Blink in it. Not too hard, but
far from guaranteed in the early game.

> blinking with missile weapons means you can
> pretty much avoid melee entirely.

Yeah, it's great. I keep building conjurations with my DEAs's instead, even
when I get Blink, which is part of my downfall. I guess I'll cross my fingers
and go for that route if I start a DEAs again.

The big trick is to learn where to stand when you activate the blink -- how
to maximize the percentage of visible squares that aren't adjacent to an
enemy.

The damage on the durn hand crossbows is pretty pitiful, though training
helps at least, and sometimes you can achieve a lot with poison.

Do you supplement the hand crossbows with something, or trap-scum and fire
them non-stop, or fire them non-stop without trap-scumming? I'm afraid to use
the third of these options and dislike the second, so I use the first: I only
fire the hand crossbow when I have "enough" free XP in the pool (about 2
points at first, higher later on) or when facing something nasty, and use
short blades or alternative missile weapons on the rest. And then on the
occasions when I've gotten Magic Dart, I've used that (with Conjurations
turned off) to build Spellcasting before the low-level bonus runs out.

> [blink-and-plink] even works against packs of yaks - though that's a bit
> hairier.

You blink. The yak hits you! The yak hits you! The yak hits you! The yak hits
you! **LOW HITPOINT WARNING**


> i'm carefully keeping translocations my highest
> skill, so i can get controlled blink from my next acquirement.

What's your plan for not becoming a writhing mass of primal chaos from
controlled blink?

> next stop: enchantments.
>
> i happily found a crossbow midway down the lair. just as well, life using
> just a hand crossbow was getting exciting. now i've got 300 bolts stashed
> in the temple..

Such a long way to travel... what I've taken to doing (in general, not just
for DEAs's) is a compromise where I set up an early stash in the Temple and,
yes, relocate it to Lair:1 once it's safe to mill about there. The relocation
is a little boring, but not SO bad, and you only have to do it once.
Sometimes twice -- I collect ALL ammo types with these guys, since you never
know when you'll get a +9, +9 blink/sense surroundings/teleport/invisibility
Sling of Doom or whatever, and by that ammo gets heavy by DL 3 or so. I
always tend to put off this initial stash as long as possible, in hopes of
waiting it out until the Temple, which leads to comical situations like
having to visit a junkpile after every little short sword I pick up, but
hopefully I'll break that bad habit.

> but they're damn heavy to carry about, even just 50 at a time.

The nice thing about a stash close to where the action is is that you can
afford to carry far less ammo.

>
> god: okawaru. couldn't think of a better choice. though i'm thinking it
> might be a bit of a waste, given i'll be able to cast haste myself.
> still, i suppose i save 6 spell levels, and i've got haste from okawaru
> *right now* rather than at some unspecified point in the future.

*Right now* with 3 or 4 failures per success until you build your Invocations
up, non?

Erik

 

[Ru]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Erik Piper wrote:
> bork bork bork ru bork 3:09:33 PM bork 2/11/2005 bork bork:

>> i've gone for translocation.
> This depends on actually finding a book with Blink in it. Not too hard, but
> far from guaranteed in the early game.

minor magic has blink - and it's the most common book in the game; three
times more so than any other because of the three versions. but yeah,
it's a small risk - like hoping to find a crossbow.

> The big trick is to learn where to stand when you activate the blink -- how
> to maximize the percentage of visible squares that aren't adjacent to an
> enemy.

although when you're chain-blinking you often don't have the choice

> Do you supplement the hand crossbows with something, or trap-scum and fire
> them non-stop, or fire them non-stop without trap-scumming?

i did a bit of scumming for darts, but actually haven't needed to do too
much. the odd bit of melee against weak opponents to build up my
fighting, but that's about it.

>> [blink-and-plink] even works against packs of yaks - though that's a bit
>> hairier.
> You blink. The yak hits you! The yak hits you! The yak hits you! The yak hits
> you! **LOW HITPOINT WARNING**

*shrug* it's a risk. though when hasted you can blink in and out without
being hit. (50% of the time)

>> i'm carefully keeping translocations my highest
>> skill, so i can get controlled blink from my next acquirement.
> What's your plan for not becoming a writhing mass of primal chaos from
> controlled blink?

moderation ;-)
otherwise it'll be haste (with resist slowing of course), invisibility, and
controlled blink. my, that hat sets off your protoplasm sir!

>> i happily found a crossbow midway down the lair. just as well, life using
>> just a hand crossbow was getting exciting. now i've got 300 bolts stashed
>> in the temple..
> Such a long way to travel... what I've taken to doing (in general, not just
> for DEAs's) is a compromise where I set up an early stash in the Temple and,
> yes, relocate it to Lair:1 once it's safe to mill about there.

ditto.. i just haven't moved it yet.

>> god: okawaru. couldn't think of a better choice. though i'm thinking it
>> might be a bit of a waste, given i'll be able to cast haste myself.
>> still, i suppose i save 6 spell levels, and i've got haste from okawaru
>> *right now* rather than at some unspecified point in the future.
> *Right now* with 3 or 4 failures per success until you build your Invocations
> up, non?

yeah, but that's not so bad if you're careful. i don't really need it as
a lifesaver quite yet.

--
ru

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Rubinstein wrote:

> Erik Piper wrote:
> > bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 12:00:51 AM bork 2/11/2005 bork bork:
> >
> >> Erik Piper wrote:
> >> > bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 6:32:34 AM bork 2/10/2005 bork bork:
> >> >
> >> > [air elementalists]

> >> Though I wouldn't call [Erik's Munchkin the CeAE] a real Air Elementalist,
> >> just someone who scratch the cream from the AE-cake. ;-)
> >
> > Oh, absolutely. Scratch the cream from EVERY cake, in fact.
> > [...]
> > Which reminds me: I hate to be evil like this, but if you really get
> > frustrated with the quantity of endgame baddies that resist
> > electricity, and you don't want to use other magic, there's always
> > bows...
>
> I don't think 'real' AEs have to regret other attack spell schools as
> long as they keep Air as main school. Being practically restricted from
> Earth is hard enough already.
>
> What's about summoning for a GEAEs? I got a staff of summoning and
> learned Summon Elemental (couldn't try yet, the staff is still stashed
> some levels above). I never used Air Elementals before, but with a high
> skill on air I thought that could be a way to go (and is still in
> theme).

Summoning seems to be powerful enough in Crawl; I avoid summoning in EVERY
roguelike because I'm greedy and want to keep my XP for myself, but there have
been summoner and summoning-necromancer YAVPs, so there must be something to
say for it. And as a summoner, you get as a free bonus all the treasure in the
Tomb... once you've summoned your ugly friends, there's nothing to stop you
from casting Silence and siccing them on those mummies, and as an Air
Elementalist, it's your "right"... 🙂)). Besides, the treasure there will
probably just be the usual pile of gold dragon armors and maces of crushing
(unless you do the Tomb with a combat wombat, in which case it's randart robes,
quick blades, and staves of conjuration). So you won't feel you gained anything
unjustly, you know. Especially since, by being a real man and avoiding Earth,
you won't have ToD to hide in, which means a certain amount of blood-sweating
terror is just GONNA happen in the Tomb for you.

Summon Elemental also serves as a digging spell (the summoned elementals will
be hostile due to your low Earth skill, but hey, it's all fun). Air elementals
are very easily available, but their friendliness is very, very unpredictable.
I think they might also be invisible, but don't quote me on this. My best
results were with summoning a bunch in advance, letting the friendly ones kill
off the unfriendly ones, and only then moving forward.

Erik

 

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Erik Piper wrote:
> Rubinstein wrote:
>
>> Erik Piper wrote:
>> > bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 12:00:51 AM bork 2/11/2005 bork
>> > bork:
>> >
>> >> Erik Piper wrote:
>> >> > bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 6:32:34 AM bork 2/10/2005 bork
>> >> > bork:
>> >> >
>> >> > [air elementalists]
>
>>
>> [What's about summoning for a GEAEs?]
>
> [...]
> Summoning seems to be powerful enough in Crawl; I avoid summoning in
> EVERY roguelike because I'm greedy and want to keep my XP for myself

I also tend to avoid it but not that strictly and for another reason.
They often just slow down the game flow. An extreme example for what I
mean is Hengband where you even don't have to cast summoning. There are
areas in Hengband wherein monsters are hostile to each other, not
necessarily friendly to the player. Interesting, though for the first
time only. I recall reading messages about what's going on throughout
the entire level on every move...

> [...]
>
> Air elementals are very easily available, but their friendliness is
> very, very unpredictable.

But doesn't their friendliness depend on the caster's air skill?

> I think they might also be invisible, but don't quote me on this.
> My best results were with summoning a bunch in advance, letting the
> friendly ones kill off the unfriendly ones, and only then moving
> forward.

Uuh, sounds scary. Are they as slow as earth elements?

Rubinstein

 

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ru wrote:
> abc wrote:
>>
>> "Rubinstein" <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message
>> news:cuggjd$lqp$04$1@news.t-online.com...
>>>
>>> [some random noise about magic]
>>
>> He must have seen the RNG too, I reckon :]
>
> it's an amazing faculty of the human mind to impute patterns onto
> random noise ;-)

There are even theories about those 'patterns' *are* what we call
'reality' ;-)

> back on the subject of magic, psychology experiments have shown that
> people who believe in psychic phenomena are more likely to lack a
> basic grasp of probability. make of that what you will

Uuh, what a sentence! It's early in the morning here (as in early
morning = when I left my bed) and I probably could understand this
sentence if I only would know the meaning of "psychic phenomena".

As a sidenote, though scientists tend to feel like having a "basic grasp
of probability" (at least), they still think digital (as in true and
false, nothing in-between). All they're doing is just trying to
'quantify' probabilities. And that IMO qualifies them for having no clue
at all about the nature of probabilities.

Mind you, you told me "make of that what you will" ;-)
But then, it's *too* early in the morning, probably... *g*

Rubinstein

 

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On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:19:55 +0100, Rubinstein
<picommander@t-online.de> wrote:

>I also tend to avoid it but not that strictly and for another reason.
>They often just slow down the game flow. An extreme example for what I
>mean is Hengband where you even don't have to cast summoning. There are
>areas in Hengband wherein monsters are hostile to each other, not
>necessarily friendly to the player. Interesting, though for the first
>time only. I recall reading messages about what's going on throughout
>the entire level on every move...

A lot of *bands that added monster fighting had this problem (well,
Zangband had it and most of the others branched off from Z, inherited
the problem, and didn't do much to try to fix it or made bad fixes).

R. Dan Henry
danhenry@inreach.com

 

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R Dan Henry wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:19:55 +0100, Rubinstein
><picommander@t-online.de> wrote:
>
>> [Why I don't like summoning, Hengband's monster fighting as extreme
>> example]
>> [...]
>> I recall reading messages about what's going on throughout the entire
>> level on every move...
>
> A lot of *bands that added monster fighting had this problem (well,
> Zangband had it and most of the others branched off from Z, inherited
> the problem, and didn't do much to try to fix it or made bad fixes).

It's a pity, I found Hengband quite interesting but exactly that problem
stopped me from playing very soon. Though there was a filter for these
messages IIRC, but then you missed the few important ones, too. OTOH you
missed them anyway, at last when you got tired reading through every
single bit of all that noise.

Rubinstein

 

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Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message news:<culaba$g10$00$1@news.t-online.com>...
> Erik Piper wrote:

> > Air elementals are very easily available, but their friendliness is
> > very, very unpredictable.
>
> But doesn't their friendliness depend on the caster's air skill?

AFAIKT, it does. Somewhere around skill level 12-13 they seem to turn
up mostly tame.

> > I think they might also be invisible, but don't quote me on this.
> > My best results were with summoning a bunch in advance, letting the
> > friendly ones kill off the unfriendly ones, and only then moving
> > forward.
>
> Uuh, sounds scary. Are they as slow as earth elements?

No, rather the opposite. They are very fast, and quasi-invisible: you
can see them sometimes, but most of the time they are invisible. See
invisible doesn't seem to help.

Summoning is definitely something AE:s should use - with Vehumet's
"helps your destructive magics during prayer"-ability it's a lot
easier to cast summoning spells, and if you have an amulet of warding
or Vehumet's protection you're mostly safe from the untame ones. And
if you're going with Sif Muna, a book with Summon small mammal will
turn up sooner or later for training summoning. Air elementals are
quite powerful: they are fast and a bunch of them can take out most
monsters during midgame, especially the slower types. They seem to do
physical damage, so electricity-resistant monsters are no problem for
them.

/Johan

 

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Johan Strandell wrote:
> Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message
> news:<culaba$g10$00$1@news.t-online.com>...

[Air Elementals, shameless big snip]

> Air elementals are quite powerful: they are fast and a bunch of them
> can take out most monsters during midgame, especially the slower
> types. They seem to do physical damage, so electricity-resistant
> monsters are no problem for them.

Thanks, that was a *very* useful advice! 🙂
Currently I've got a second DEAE (I'm playing them constantly for more
than a week now; I must be crazy) with the opportunity to summon
elementals and the first time I was able to clear the Pits with that
certain combo.

These air elementals are really strange, though: very often I don't know
where they are and sometimes I even don't know whether they still exist
at all, which makes tactical play not particularly easy. But it's an
absolutely thrilling experience when your survival mainly depends on
those unpredictable helpers, a little bit like walking on the main
street in underpants. ;-)

But what still puzzles me is that most of the time they seem to attack
something invisible. At first I thought about unseen horrors, but it
happened much too often (and I was never attacked by an unseen horror in
that game), so I'm almost sure to exclude this probability. Here is an
example, where I currently even can see all my existing elementals, and
the only hostile elemental is already dead:

###.##### MaxDillon the Destroyer
### #.# Grey Elf
#.# #.###### HP: 68/69
#.# #....... Magic: 12/36
#.################ AC: 18 (0)
#................. EV: 15
###..............# Str: 8
######...........)..# Int: 25
#|vv@'%.............# Dex: 19
##v###..............# Gold: 1167
#.# #..............# Experience: 14/98766 (115)
##.################## Level 11 of the Dungeon
#........... a) short sword (protect)
##.##.......
### ######


Things that are here:
an orcish short sword
a kobold corpse
It misses it.


The "it misses it" is the typical message as long as summoned air
elementals exist. What does it mean? I'm a bit reluctantly to consider a
bug too soon, maybe there's something I just don't know yet (besides,
there are no plants or fungi on this level). Do they fight each other,
even when all elementals are friendly?

Rubinstein

 

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bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 4:03:07 AM bork 2/17/2005 bork bork:

> Johan Strandell wrote:
> > Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message
> > news:<culaba$g10$00$1@news.t-online.com>...
>
> [Air Elementals, shameless big snip]

[...]

> Currently I've got a second DEAE (I'm playing them constantly for more
> than a week now; I must be crazy) with the opportunity to summon
> elementals and the first time I was able to clear the Pits with that
> certain combo.

The PITS? Wow.

[More Air Elementals, more shameless big snipping.
"No hostile air elementals."]

> Things that are here:
> an orcish short sword
> a kobold corpse
> It misses it.

As much as I hate to say it: are you sure there are no hostile air elementals
left? After all, you can't see all of them... the only way to know for sure
is to keep a tally of all the elementals you summon, although this is
complicated by the fact that they eventually disappear.

The other possibilities:

1) You have run into lots of things that can cast confusion, and the air
elementals have a low magic resistance (though I doubt that they do, and I
also doubt that you've run into that many things that can cast confusion).
The idea here is that, since confused monsters sometimes attack themselves,
this is what you're seeing.

2) You are using Mephitic Cloud a lot, and the air elementals have a low
magic resistance (blah blah etc.)... assuming this has an effect, and
assuming that they aren't poison resistant (AFAIK poison resistance prevents
confusion from mephitic clouds for monsters just like it does for PCs.) Also
not very likely.

Erik

 

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Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message news:<cv11hb$1qe$01$1@news.t-online.com>...

> The "it misses it" is the typical message as long as summoned air
> elementals exist. What does it mean? I'm a bit reluctantly to consider a
> bug too soon, maybe there's something I just don't know yet (besides,
> there are no plants or fungi on this level). Do they fight each other,
> even when all elementals are friendly?

I think they attack each other, for some reason. Perhaps they move
around somewhat randomly, and when they try to move into each other
it's considered an attack from the game's POV. That's the only
explanation I can think of unless it's a bug.

/Johan

 

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Erik Piper wrote:
> bork bork bork Rubinstein bork 4:03:07 AM bork 2/17/2005 bork bork:
>
>> Johan Strandell wrote:
>> > Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote in message
>> > news:<culaba$g10$00$1@news.t-online.com>...
>>
>> [Air Elementals, shameless big snip]
>
> [...]
>
>> Currently I've got a second DEAE (I'm playing them constantly for
>> more than a week now; I must be crazy) with the opportunity to summon
>> elementals and the first time I was able to clear the Pits with that
>> certain combo.
>
> The PITS? Wow.

No, not THE PITS, sorry, I meant the Snake Pit. I never was in the Slime
Pits before (other than just dipping my toe into), what may excuse my
ambiguity. But since it's called Snake Pit and not Pit's' it just was a
clear (and unambiguous) mistake. :-/

Still, even 'only' the Snake Pit was a giant step in my long lasting
attempts for getting GEAEs as far as possible (I'm not even dreaming
about winning such a combo). Besides, are there already any GEAE
winners? I couldn't find anything alike in google archives...

> [More Air Elementals, more shameless big snipping.
> "No hostile air elementals."]
>
>> Things that are here:
>> an orcish short sword
>> a kobold corpse
>> It misses it.
>
> As much as I hate to say it: are you sure there are no hostile air
> elementals left?

Let me say it this way: I'm as sure as I can be in this case. The only
hostile one was produced while checking out my brand new staff of
summoning (you see that staff on the left side? *g*). Then I summoned 3
others (w/o the staff *g*) which killed the hostile one.

Meanwhile I've summoned quite a lot of elementals and from my experience
it's harder to miss the hostiles than the friendly ones: while the
friendly elementals tend to spread all over the level (and unfortunately
don't care much about '!!' calls), the hostile ones are either trying to
attack my char (and thus are in my vicinity) or are busy with the
friendly ones, which are currently seen on the screenshot.

These messages seem to be quite common, though. I got them on almost
every level in the Lair and the Snake Pit, but here they probably could
have attacked plants (in case of the Lair). But even after destroying
all plants I still got these 'it hits it' messages. The current
situation appears much clearer, though: I know how much elementals I
have summoned, how much are still existing and all 3 are in my vicinity.
It's also my first visit on this level.

> After all, you can't see all of them... the only way to know for sure
> is to keep a tally of all the elementals you summon, although this is
> complicated by the fact that they eventually disappear.

Sure, there's still a rest of imponderability (I could have dragged one
of my former elementals up to the current level, for instance. Usually
you can't see that). But, after summing up all these messages, the
indications seem pointing towards something very strange or even a bug.

Rubinstein

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

In article <cv2p75$j0b$04$1@news.t-online.com>,
Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote:
// Erik Piper wrote:
// >
// > The PITS? Wow.
//
// No, not THE PITS, sorry, I meant the Snake Pit. I never was in the Slime
// Pits before (other than just dipping my toe into), what may excuse my
// ambiguity. But since it's called Snake Pit and not Pit's' it just was a
// clear (and unambiguous) mistake. :-/

Indeed... in fact, there's also The Pit (one of the unimplemented hells,
which still has some mentions in the code).

// > [More Air Elementals, more shameless big snipping.
// > "No hostile air elementals."]
// >
// >> Things that are here:
// >> an orcish short sword
// >> a kobold corpse
// >> It misses it.

Oh, and this is quite probably a bug. At the very least, the code
probably shouldn't be telling you about things you can't see /not/
hitting things you can't see... especially if we're talking about
air elementals, because they're special and shouldn't be attacking
anything when you can't see them (spoiler: gurl fhozretr va nve...
fhozretrq zbafgref fubhyqa'g vagrenpg jvgu nalguvat, gurl pna pb-rkvfg).

Brent Ross

 

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Brent Ross wrote:
> In article <cv2p75$j0b$04$1@news.t-online.com>,
> Rubinstein <picommander@t-online.de> wrote:
> // Erik Piper wrote:
> // >
> // > [More Air Elementals, more shameless big snipping.
> // > "No hostile air elementals."]
> // >
> // >> Things that are here:
> // >> an orcish short sword
> // >> a kobold corpse
> // >> It misses it.
>
> Oh, and this is quite probably a bug. At the very least, the code
> probably shouldn't be telling you about things you can't see /not/
> hitting things you can't see... especially if we're talking about air
> elementals, because they're special and shouldn't be attacking
> anything when you can't see them (spoiler: gurl fhozretr va nve...
> fhozretrq zbafgref fubhyqa'g vagrenpg jvgu nalguvat, gurl pna
> pb-rkvfg).

That's good to hear. I hardly could believe they actually attack
anything at all (even not each other), at least not everytime I get this
message. When I see how fast they can finish some Yaks, these mysterious
something must be really tough since those messages are usually lasting
for many rounds. I should have seen (or killed by) it at least once,
and my elementals should be in a less perfect condition. When I checked
those 3 from my screenshot, just one of them was slightly damaged, very
likely from the fight against the hostile elemental.

After reading your spoiler part, my first thought was that therein
described procedure could mistakingly be piped through a procedure which
deals with damage messages. Though it sounds a little bit too easy and
obvious...

Rubinstein

 

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bork bork bork Brent Ross bork 1:35:22 AM bork 2/18/2005 bork bork:

> In article <cv2p75$j0b$04$1@news.t-online.com>,

> [air elementals] fhozretr va nve...
> fhozretrq zbafgref fubhyqa'g vagrenpg jvgu nalguvat, gurl pna pb-rkvfg).

Incidentally, might there be a relation between the fhozretvat code and the
bug where, quite occasionally, you and a monster will co-exist on the same
square?

Erik

 

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> I'd say it's more precise to say most people don't follow science.
> Even scientists rarely follow the scientific method. Science advances
> over the bodies of dead scientists. Look at the resistance to any new
> idea, regardless of its efficiacy. Ie, plate tectonics. Scientists
> can be every bit a dogmatic as priests.

Scientists, as an aspect of their profession, are supposed to avoid
dogmatism -- though they sometimes fail.
Priests, as an aspect of their profession, are supposed to embrace
dogmatism -- and they rarely fail.

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."